Case Study: A Five Billion Dollar Loan Conversion

In 2012, FirstMerit Bank, NA announced that it had acquired Flint, Michigan based Citizens Republic bank. The merger would nearly double the assets of FirstMerit from $14B to $24B. But, the merger was dependent on the successful conversion of the Citizens Republic loan portfolio. As the integration lead for loan operations at FirstMerit, I led the effort to convert systems and develop post-integration operating models that eventually saw the bank's loan portfolio grow from $9B to $14B.